Influencers, Healthcare, and Sports. Here’s why the three work together.
Major League Baseball stars will soon convene in Los Angeles for the coveted All-Star game. An event that will bring thousands of fans to enjoy all the festivities of All-Star week and coverage that will reach millions of homes and mobile devices across the United States. As these stars prepare for the 92nd Annual Midsummer Classic, players and teams will use their unique positioning to market themselves and partnered brands to build followers and drive brand strategy. As an influencer, these baseball stars have the ability to amplify a message, build brand awareness, sell a product, shed light on a cause or raise funds.
When it comes to healthcare, influencers can play a significant role in moving brand strategy forward. As a sports marketing agency that specializes in healthcare, Playbook for Health understands the power of sports personalities, which position them as an integral component for our clients reaching their goals. Sports personalities are more than just athletes, it includes mascots, former players, team leaders and more. Major sports events like the All-Star game, give these personalities a larger platform to elevate the brands they support, with the capability of reaching millions of potential leads.
Three ways influencer marketing impacts brand strategy:
Build Trust: Utilizing patient stories is a common strategy for healthcare systems - rightfully so. Current and prospective patients want to see themselves in the material highlighting what the hospital, doctors and medical staff can do to assist them through their medical needs. Aligning with the right ambassador can amplify marketing efforts. By having a trusted ambassador, who is treasured by the community for their leadership, partnering to highlight key messages will amplify initiatives and increase brand awareness, patient acquisition and more. In Atlanta, former Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan has long been the face of Emory Healthcare’s Healthy ATL initiative, a campaign encouraging dads to be healthy. Matt’s follower demographic on his social media, place in Falcons’ lore, and overall personality and demeanor partnered well with service line campaigns involving men’s health, as well as fundraising for health equity.
Broader Audience: A key component for any influencer campaign is to grow followers, drive earned media, and extend overall reach, impressions and engagements. Partnering with an influencer with a large and diverse audience is a strategy to build brand awareness and message key initiatives. Authentic content from a spokesperson with a strong followership, who is well-respected in the community, will garner exponentially greater reach and engagement when posting or sharing on their own channels. In Seattle, iHeart radio and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (VMFH) produced the “Make a Play for Your Health” podcast series, which featured multiple influencers discussing important health issues with a VMFH doctor. The podcasts are segmentized and shared across various constituents’ platforms, maximizing the reach and engagement. A great example of the magnitude influencers can have, even with medical and health-related topics.
Philanthropy: Raising funds for a cause can be tricky. It is a perfect balance of sharing valuable and persuasive information and highlighting the need and how the funds will be used. Marketing philanthropic programs with a trusted ambassador is an exciting, yet strategic way to grab an audience’s attention. Using external marketing campaigns and earned media, healthcare systems can capitalize on a spokesperson’s ability to capture an audience and make a plea to take an action like donating or volunteering for a noble cause. In 2015, Tackle Kids Cancer launched with former NFL quarterback Eli Manning at the helm, introducing the stories of patients, doctors and nurses at the Children’s Cancer Institute at Hackensack Meridian Health. Eli’s organic storytelling -not as a Giants QB, but as a dad - worked to inspire community engagement and crowdfunding through traditional and digital media. In turn, Eli’s Challenge was developed to challenge the community to raise money together in the fight against childhood cancer. And with annual matching gifts from Eli and corporate partnership support, Tackle Kids Cancer has since raised over $10,000,000.
Sports have a place in healthcare marketing. These sports stars can be the catalyst for pushing healthcare systems’ variety of service line messaging, cause marketing, fundraising and overall brand awareness to the next level.